GIB: The goal is the journey

Since  2020, every student at DSM follows the International Baccalaureate. That’s how they open doors for themselves from a personal and academic perspective.

A globalized world demands profiles with tools that allow a high performance in academic and professional environments. Today, it does not  matter where you are  from, what matters is how well prepared you are to face a multicultural world.

With this in mind, Deutsche Schule Medellín decided to implement the Bilingual International Baccalaureate -IB- model (called GIB-Gemischtsprachiges International Baccalaureate -GIB- in German Schools). That is how, since  2020, students from Klasse 11 and Klasse 12 receive education designed to  help them in their global performance.

According to Anke Käding, Head teacher  at DSM, “GIB fits perfectly with our values, with the work that we have initiated in terms of international education and with the learning profiles that we want to develop”.

In that sense, elements such as multiculturality and autonomy—which are important in any professional profile—are present in the cornerstones set by the DSM and by the International Baccalaureate.

"IB for everybody allows us to generate links from Kindergarten to Oberstufe, from math to art. It makes our jobs easier when it comes to unifying cross-disciplinary concepts such as perspective and change. These are also important when it comes to understanding different cultures”, expresses Melissa Vickers, Extended Essay Coordinator. This is a pedagogical tool that widens our students’ horizons. This vision helps attributes such as collaborative work and autonomy become relevant in educational processes.

For Anke Käding, one of the most important things of the GIB is that it allows to work between peers : “we can  see what other schools in the world are doing, we can find out what we’re doing right and what we can  improve”. Thus, we are striving to educate competitive students who can make it nationally and internationally. “We help each one of them form their own opinion, create a critical point of view, and  learn to communicate depending on the context”, explains Melissa Vickers. Besides academic education, GIB also focuses on fostering soft skills and communication abilities: “we want them to be able to speak adequately and to express their ideas in a clear and compelling way”, states Melissa.

GIB for everybody

To ensure that everybody has access to the same academic opportunities, it was decided that every student at DSM would be a part of this process—it used to be optional. “This allows us to work on strategies routed towards GIB education from Kindergarten”, argues Melissa Vickers. “Besides, it helps our teachers open their minds. They don’t only explain a topic, they teach their students how to solve problems. It is a much wider vision in terms of education”, adds Käding. Along these lines, a new way of understanding is fostered among students who prioritize information to then turn it into knowledge. “GIB is a process of constant reflection. Thanks to projects such as the Extended Essay, students learn to interpret the world differently. They can understand what they want and where they’re going, they learn to pause, review and filter information, and they find out how to analyze, arrive  to their own  conclusions and take a stand”, explains the Extended Essay Coordinator.

In the end, GIB opens up many possibilities both personally and academically. With a GIB diploma, it  becomes easier for these students to enter different universities in other countries. “GIB focuses on  learning, creating new ways of thinking, and encouraging students to wonder where they’re going and how they will prepare themselves to achieve that goal”, concludes Käding.